11.2

The artificial stillness of the town crept its way, at last, into the full-packed bar. Charlie, brother of the deceased, climbed up on top of the pool table and took his hat off.
"Now, you all know I ain't one for makin' big speeches or dwellin' on the past. Lord knows we've had enough sadness for one day." At this, the crowd rustled around him, a sea of bare, bowed heads. "Y'all know my brother. He was kindly to all of you in his way, and he didn't deserve to die, not yet."
One out-of-place old woman called feebly from the corner "None of us expect that grim hand!"
The man shook his head. "I suppose you're right, Widda Toulaine. Ain't one of us can say we're fit to meet the Lord. But that's why we're all here, I warrant. Chuck--" at this, the big man paused.
"Best to honor his mem'ry," growled the doctor's son.
The man on the table resettled his weight. "Old habits," was all he said to that. "We're here to find Maubern Mithen's wife and kids a new home. Now, I said wife and children, am I clear? Cain't nobody take half a handshake."
The crowd around him lost its reverence.
Charlie looked down at the folks and grasped his gun belt. "If y'all don't like the terms, you can git out."
The crowd erupted. The butcher waved his hat in the air and whistled so as to make the air split. The big man cried "And the more fools you. Won't nobody tell me there's a raw deal in it!" There was some nervous chuckling, but things remained still. "Sorry 'bout them, Charlie. Keep going."
"Thanks, Herriot," Charlie said. He turned to the crowd. "Now, who will take these of the departed?" His eyes swept the chamber.
That's when she stood up. Dressed in a clean white apron, dark hair wild and fighting to be free, she was contrast personified. Pale skin glowed out at her neck and wrist to fight the black she wore. The people who has been pressing near now stepped back a pace.
"You have all been forgetting me. Forgetting my family. Mauburn never was around; he was always fighting your crusades." Oh, how men looked at her through hurt eyes. "Never here in life! He won't be missed in death. All I ask is that when you next visit my farm, you don't come alone and you don't come together. I'll tell you that if a man walks up the way I'll know it's myself he wants and if it's all, then you're after my boy."
Charlie on the table speaks as if it's tearing him. "If such is your fear, you've not spoken without cause. Who, Bella?"
"You always were more man and less animal than Maubern," she said. If I were ten years older ten years ago, our stories might read different. But of course all I need is for you to put a pack of fouls in the dirt." He shook under it like she meant to break him. "Think next time, Charlie. That won't fix the past." She turned back to the crowd, which all but shuddered back. She yelled, hurt-torn, "I know you think I'm the Devil's Dame, and my son his messenger. Well, I'll have to take that weight off your shoulders. Nobody around here knows how to talk to the devil, let alone God. So just you all resist that curiosity to come visit. Next time that itch hits you, ask if curiosity burns brighter than a funeral pyre." Her tone changed, and she leaned down to see under the pool table. There in the darkness lay a two-year old shape. She took its hand and walked to the door, slow and agonizing slow because of the figure's gait. When she got there, she paused to look back. "Burn your Christian charity, and yourselves with it. If it weren't there when it could do some good, it's unwelcome now." The black of her dress joined that blackness of night, and she was gone.